Hi dear readers,

I’ve taken a long break from writing due to the thought of logging into my online book blog since my mom’s passing in November 2021. My mom’s comments were waiting for me, ones that I’ve already read countless times, but now bittersweet to read. The Quirky Bookworm blog was my mom’s idea originally and now I am continuing my blog in honor of her. I’ve struggled not only with writing, but also with reading. I’ve read only two books from start to finish since my mom passed away. I’ve decided to ease my way back into reading by focusing on beach reads, so this is a list I’ve created. I hope this helps you just as much as it’s helped me.

For those that knew my mom, you know that the beach was one of her favorite places to visit. Sunshine, sand, waves and a cold drink are always a good combination, along with an entertaining escape read.

Don’t miss the lists of soon-to-be-published summer reads for 2022 and a list of websites from readers across the web of their favorite beach reads. HAPPY READING!

Title: The Getaway Girls
Author: Dee MacDonald
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: July 2018
Page Length: 342 pages
Publisher summary:
Connie McColl is finally free to make her own decisions for the first time in decades. And when she meets glamorous Gill and downtrodden Maggie, at a rather dull flower arranging class, it seems that she’s not the only one dreaming of adventure. The three very different women all agree it’s about time they had a holiday to remember. So they make a pact for this summer to be their best yet – and drive off into the sunset together. As they meander their way along the beautiful beaches of France and onto the glorious delights of Italy in their luxury campervan, the new friends have plenty of fun and frolics in the sunshine. But the vacation isn’t quite what they expected…

In the end, all three women discover that the journey they thought would be their last really is just the beginning…

Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Mini-Break
Author: Maddie Please
Publisher: One More Chapter
Publication Date: March 2019
Page Length: 385 pages
Publisher summary:
Lulu has it all; a romance writer at the height of her career, she can often be found attending glittery parties or spending time with her good-looking, health-fanatic boyfriend, Benedict.
When writer’s block strikes she goes on a mini-break to Devon, which proves just the tonic she needs. But upon her return to London, she finds her usual perfect life in chaos. 
Will escaping back to the countryside be the answer? And will life become even more complicated when Lulu runs into handsome, brooding farmer Joe?
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Chasing the Sun
Author: Judy Leigh
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Publication Date: April 2021
Page Length: 364 pages
Publisher summary:
Molly’s seventieth birthday comes as a shock. The woman in the mirror looks every day of those seventy years, but inside Molly feels she still has so much more living left to do. Widowed and living alone with her cat, Molly fears she is slipping into a cliché of old age. When Molly’s sister Nell appears on her doorstep, distraught that her husband of more than forty years, Phil, has left her for a younger lover, the women decide to seize the day. By the morning, flights are booked, bags are packed, and they’re off to Spain.The sun, the sea, the new friends and the freedom are just the tonic for broken hearts and flagging souls. But even Spain isn’t enough to revive Molly’s spirit so she decides to head off for a solo journey to continue to chase the sun and to chase happiness. Will she find what she’s looking for in a new country, or will she discover that true contentment can’t be found on a map? But it might just be found in a new flame…
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: One Summer Sunrise
Author: Shari Low
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Publication Date: June 2021
Page Length: 336 pages
Publisher summary:
Today, Maisie McTeer decides to track down the ex who jilted her at the altar. Today, she’ll find out that revisiting the past can also rewrite her future. After losing her husband, Harriet Bassett can no longer bear her lonely life. Today, a familiar face in a crowd will spark a quest to discover if there’s something and someone worth living for. Scott and Kelly Bassett’s daughter is leaving home. Today, Scott plans to tell Kelly that he’s ending their marriage to pursue his rock and roll dreams. However, Kelly, has a bombshell of her own. Between sunrise and sunset, there’s love, heartbreak, laughter and tears, but who will find happiness at the end of the day?
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Secrets in the Sand
Author: Carolyn Brown
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Publication Date: July 2021
Page Length: 338 pages
Publisher summary:
He left her alone in the sand that night
And has regretted it ever since
But maybe he can mend it
If only she’ll let him
Time doesn’t heal all wounds… Not when they are deep within the heart like Angela Conrad’s. Ten years ago, Clancy Morgan broke her heart and even though she’s made a successful life as a musician, she’s never gotten over that pain. Angel didn’t intend to ever go back home, but when she’s invited to return to her hometown to play for the high school reunion dance, she agrees, knowing full well that if Clancy sees her up on that stage, he’ll regret the day he ever said goodbye.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Bookstore on the Beach
Author: Brenda Novak
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: April 2021
Page Length: 465 pages
Publisher summary:
Eighteen months ago, Autumn Divac’s husband went missing. Her desperate search has yielded no answers, and she can’t imagine moving forward without him. But for the sake of their two teenage children, she has to try. Autumn takes her kids home for the summer to the charming beachside town where she was raised. She seeks comfort working alongside her mother and aunt at their bookshop, only to learn that her daughter is facing a huge life change and her mother has been hiding a terrible secret for years. And when she runs into the boy who stole her heart in high school, old feelings start to bubble up again. Is she free to love him, or should she hold out hope for her husband’s return? She can only trust her heart…and hope it won’t lead her astray.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Beach House
Author: Jenny Hale
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: June 2021
Page Length: 318 pages
Publisher summary:
When her gram passes away, Melanie Simpson feels utterly lost. But her grandmother’s will gives her a purpose: an inheritance to buy a crumbling house in Rosemary Bay. They used to visit the village every summer, sit by the sparkling water on a beach the color of pearl, and daydream about turning the place on the corner into a bed and breakfast. On her first night in her new hometown, Melanie meets local contractor and landowner Josh Claiborne, whose eyes match the dazzling sea. Melanie plans to restore the beach house to its original glory, and Josh is the perfect person to help renovate the wrap-around porch weathered by the coastal breeze and the peeling white paint faded by the sun. But hiding in a closet is a yellowing stack of letters that could change everything. The looping handwriting reveals the mystery of the rickety house—a buried history that touches everyone in Rosemary Bay. Will its secrets bring Melanie and Josh together or tear them apart?
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: A Secret in the Keys
Author: Hope Holloway
Publication Date: February 2021
Page Length: 278 pages
Publisher summary:
The last thing Beck Foster wants to do is attend a party for her estranged aunt in the Florida Keys. One month earlier, Beck’s seemingly ideal existence imploded when her husband of thirty-four years announced he was leaving her. Now, so she has to sell her house, get a job, and somehow put her broken heart and life back together. She can’t do all that if she runs off to visit a woman she barely remembers. Or can she? Accompanied by her grown daughter who also longs for an escape, Beck heads to Coconut Key, where she’d lived the earliest years of her life. There, she forges a life-changing relationship with a woman she never really understood, dips her toes into the waters of a new romance, and begins the process of starting over. But when a secret kept for nearly fifty years comes crashing down on them, all of Beck’s dreams are once again threatened. Can she forgive the lies that have shaped her life, or will the past ruin her chance at a new beginning in Coconut Key?
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Un-honeymooners
Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: May 2019
Page Length: 429 pages
Publisher summary:
Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed. By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion…she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests. Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas. Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there’s a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo. Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is…Olive doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Coral Cottage
Author: Jan Morgan
Publisher: Sunny Palms Press
Publication Date: July 2020
Page Length: 290 pages
Publisher summary:
When Marina Moore’s life blows up on national television, she seeks refuge at her grandmother’s beach house called the Coral Cottage. Now in her mid-forties with children in college, Marina is in dire need of her grandmother’s gutsy advice to a well-lived life. Marina meets an old friend, Ivy Bay, proprietor of the Seabreeze Inn, who encourages her to share her love of food at the local farmer’s market. Soon Marina’s sister Kai arrives on a summer break from her musical theater troupe. Together, the sisters discover that life might hold a second chance for each of them. Jack Ventana is on a six-month sabbatical to write his first book. The only company he wants is his inquisitive Labrador Retriever puppy, but when he receives a call from an old colleague, he finds his life altered in ways he never imagined—including the prospect of romance. What began as a short, reclusive holiday is destined to change Marina’s life, especially when Jack’s research uncovers her grandmother Ginger’s hidden past. Join the fun in Summer Beach, where the bonds of friendship and love prove unbreakable.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Younger Wife
Author: Sally Hepworth
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication Date: April 2022
Page Length: 348 pages
Publisher summary:
THE HUSBAND
A heart surgeon at the top of his field, Stephen Aston is getting married again. But first he must divorce his current wife, even though she can no longer speak for herself.

THE DAUGHTERS
Tully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their father’s money.

THE FORMER WIFE
With their mother in a precarious position, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the
truth about their family’s secrets, the new wife closing in, and who their father really is.

THE YOUNGER WIFE
Heather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses
in all of them?

Click HERE to view additional details and to pay via Amazon.

Title: Blue Midnight
Author: Tess Thompson
Publication Date: November 2016
Page Length: 284 pages
Publisher summary:
A romantic small-town family saga…

A recent divorcee finally faces the consequences of having denied her destiny, following her heart to her blissful second chance in this mature standalone love story by USA Today bestselling author Tess Thompson. When Blythe Heywood left Finn Lanigan behind thirteen years ago, she was choosing a life of safety and security over true love. Little did she know how unfulfilled she’d be by the things she’d yearned for since she was a child.
Now, in the wake of her husband’s betrayal, Blythe will begin again — this time in the foothills of Blue Mountain, where her memories of the only man who ever weakened her knees will lead her — and finally take to heart that sometimes the road not taken is actually the path that is meant to be.
The first book in the Blue Mountain Series will have readers cheering for a set of lovable, complex characters as they explore the painful truths involved in accepting second chances and learning to love after loss.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: An Invincible Summer
Author: Mariah Stewart
Publisher: Montlake
Publication Date: May 2021
Page Length: 373 pages
Publisher summary:
It was a lifetime ago that recently widowed Maggie Flynn was in Wyndham Beach. Now, on the occasion of her fortieth high school reunion, she returns to her hometown on the Massachusetts coast, picking up right where she left off with dear friends Lydia and Emma. But seeing Brett Crawford again stirs other emotions. Once, they were the town’s golden couple destined for one another. He shared Maggie’s dreams—and eventually, a shattering secret that drove them apart. Buying her old family home and resettling in Wyndham Beach means a chance to start over for Maggie and her two daughters, but it also means facing her rekindled feelings for her first love and finally confronting—and embracing—the past in ways she never thought possible. Maggie won’t be alone. With her family and friends around her, she can weather this stormy turning point in her life and open her heart to the future. As for that dream shared and lost years ago? If Maggie can forgive herself, it still might come true.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Tanglewood Tea Shop
Author: Lilac Mills
Publisher: Canelo Escape
Publication Date: January 2019
Page Length: 295 pages
Publisher summary:
Patisserie-Chef Stevie is stuck in a rut. Her beloved Great Aunt Peggy has passed away and she’s lost both her job and the love of her life. Then she gets the call from the solicitor’s office about Peggy’s will, and everything changes. When Stevie sees a quirky tea shop up for sale in the beautiful village of Tanglewood, she decides to take Peggy’s advice and turn her life around. But the village isn’t as idyllic as it may at first have seemed, and when the gorgeous but grouchy local stable-owner, Nick, shows up he seems like just another fly in the pastry batter…
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Lost Girls of Ireland
Author: Susanne O’Leary
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: May 2021
Page Length: 286 pages
Publisher summary:
The picturesque beach of Wild Rose Bay is the last place Lydia Butler thought she’d be. But having just lost everything, the run-down cottage she inherited from her Great Aunt Nellie is the only place she can take her daughter, Sunny. Hidden away in a tiny Irish village, she can protect Sunny from the gossip in Dublin, and the real reason they have nowhere else to live…
The cottage is part of the old coastguard station and other eccentric residents are quick to introduce themselves when Lydia arrives. Lydia instantly feels less alone, fascinated by the stories they have about Nellie, and she’s charmed by American artist, Jason O’Callaghan, the mysterious man who lives next door.
But the longer Lydia relaxes under the moonlit sky, the more the secret she’s keeping from Sunny threatens to come out. And as she finds herself running into Jason’s arms, she knows she must be honest and face up to the past she has tried to forget. Has she finally found people who will truly accept her, or will the truth force her to leave the cottage for good?

Title: Deconstructed: A Novel
Author: Liz Talley
Publisher: Montlake
Publication Date: February 2022
Page Length: 331 pages
Publisher summary:
Antique-store owner Cricket Crosby’s life is turned upside down when she discovers that the rumors of her husband’s affair aren’t just leisurely southern gossip. Her plan: hire an investigator; find an attorney; enlist the help of her new assistant, Ruby; and make her husband pay. Ruby knows how quickly everything changes. After a dicey past, she’s determined to forge a new future by working for Cricket and reinventing herself as a designer, deconstructing vintage haute couture. If anybody can help mend a few tears in Cricket’s life, she can. But turns out Cricket’s life isn’t just a little torn. It’s wrinkled, stained, and falling apart at the seams. With Ruby and her ragtag relatives—a soused PI and a hunky tow truck driver—Cricket is sleuthing her way to the truth, no matter how dangerous it gets. Sure, Cricket’s life isn’t what she imagined. But she’s embracing change and figuring out what she really wants. And that’s kind of fabulous.
*Click HERE for additional details.

Title: The Hideaway
Author: Lauren K. Denton
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: April 2017
Page Length: 352 pages
Publisher summary:
After her last remaining family member dies, Sara Jenkins goes home to The Hideaway, her grandmother Mags’s ramshackle B&B in Sweet Bay. She intends to quickly tie up loose ends then return to her busy life and thriving antique shop in New Orleans. Instead, she learns Mags has willed The Hideaway to her and charged her with renovating it—no small task considering her grandmother’s best friends, a motley crew of senior citizens, still live there. Rather than hurrying back to New Orleans, Sara stays in Sweet Bay and begins the biggest house-rehabbing project of her career. Amid drywall dust, old memories, and a charming contractor, she discovers that slipping back into life at The Hideaway is easier than she expected. Then she discovers a box Mags left in the attic with clues to a life Sara never imagined for her grandmother. With help from Mags’s friends, Sara begins to piece together the mysterious life of bravery, passion, and choices that changed her grandmother’s destiny in both marvelous and devastating ways.
When an opportunistic land developer threatens to seize The Hideaway, Sara is forced to make a choice—stay in Sweet Bay and fight for the house and the people she’s grown to love or leave again and return to her successful but solitary life in New Orleans.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Little Shop in Cornwall
Author: Helen Pollard
Publisher: Bookouture
Publication Date: June 2020
Page Length: 315 pages
Publisher summary:
It’s been two years since Claudia arrived on the beautifully rugged Cornish coast with nothing but a suitcase to her name. She’d walked out on the husband who had never loved her, ditched the corporate job she’d never wanted and vowed that no gym membership card would come within ten feet of her ever again.
Swapping boardrooms and cocktails for a little shop right at the end of the beach road should have been a bit of a shock. But from the moment she first laid eyes on the empty, run-down store, Claudia knew this was where she was meant to be all along.
After all that upheaval, Claudia was looking forward to a quiet summer, full of the usual holiday makers and long walks along the clifftops. But life in her patch of paradise is about to change in more ways than one.
Enter recently widowed Jason, dragging his sullen teenage daughter Millie in tow. Millie and Claudia immediately hit it off. And while Millie loves everything about Claudia’s free-spirited way of life, practical architect Jason is less than thrilled about his daughter’s new interests. He doesn’t shy away from telling Claudia exactly what he thinks and sparks fly every time they meet.
But as circumstances throw Claudia into Jason’s path in increasingly unexpected ways, she begins to glimpse what lies beneath his fiery temper and sharp tongue. Claudia was sure her new life was perfect in every way. But was there something missing after all?
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Slightly South of Simple
Author: Kristin Woodson Harvey
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: April 2017
Page Length: 402 pages
Publisher summary:
Caroline Murphy swore she’d never set foot back in the small Southern town of Peachtree Bluff; she was a New York girl born and bred and the worst day of her life was when, in the wake of her father’s death, her mother selfishly forced her to move—during her senior year of high school, no less—back to that hick-infested rat trap where she’d spent her childhood summers. But now that her marriage to a New York high society heir has fallen apart in a very public, very embarrassing fashion, a pregnant Caroline decides to escape the gossipmongers with her nine-year-old daughter and head home to her mother, Ansley. Ansley has always put her three daughters first, especially when she found out that her late husband, despite what he had always promised, left her with next to nothing. Now the proud owner of a charming waterfront design business and finally standing on her own two feet, Ansley welcomes Caroline and her brood back with open arms. But when her second daughter Sloane, whose military husband is overseas, and youngest daughter and successful actress Emerson join the fray, Ansley begins to feel like the piece of herself she had finally found might be slipping from her grasp. Even more discomfiting, when someone from her past reappears in Ansley’s life, the secret she’s harbored from her daughters their entire lives might finally be forced into the open. Exploring the powerful bonds between sisters and mothers and daughters, this engaging novel is filled with Southern charm, emotional drama, and plenty of heart.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Summer Getaway
Author: Susan Mallery
Publisher: HQN Books
Publication Date: March 2022
Page Length: 418 pages
Publisher summary:
Single mom Robyn Caldwell needs a new plan for her future.  She has always put her family first.  Now, with her kids grown, she yearns for a change. But what can she do when her daughter has become the most demanding bride ever, her son won’t even consider college, her best friend is on the brink of marital disaster and her ex is making a monumentally bad decision that could ruin everything? Take a vacation, of course. Press reset. When her great-aunt Lillian invites her to Santa Barbara for the summer, Robyn hops on the first plane to sunny California. But it’s hard to get away when you’re the heart of the family. One by one, everyone she loves follows her across the country. Somehow, their baggage doesn’t feel as heavy in the sun-drenched, mishmash mansion. The more time Robyn spends with free-spirited Lillian, the more possibilities she sees—for dreams, love, family. She can have everything she ever wanted, if only she can muster the courage to take a chance on herself.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Overdue Life of Amy Byler
Author: Kelly Harms
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: May 2019
Page Length: 328 pages
Publisher summary:
Overworked and underappreciated, single mom Amy Byler needs a break. So when the guilt-ridden husband who abandoned her shows up and offers to take care of their kids for the summer, she accepts his offer and escapes rural Pennsylvania for New York City. Usually grounded and mild mannered, Amy finally lets her hair down in the city that never sleeps. She discovers a life filled with culture, sophistication, and—with a little encouragement from her friends—a few blind dates. When one man in particular makes quick work of Amy’s heart, she risks losing herself completely in the unexpected escape, and as the summer comes to an end, Amy realizes too late that she must make an impossible decision: stay in this exciting new chapter of her life, or return to the life she left behind. But before she can choose, a crisis forces the two worlds together, and Amy must stare down a future where she could lose both sides of herself, and every dream she’s ever nurtured, in the beat of a heart.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Midnight Library
Author: Matt Haig
Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: September 2020
Page Length: 299 pages
Publisher summary:
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?
In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Run, Rose, Run
Author: Dolly Parton and James Patterson
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Publication Date: March 2022
Page Length: 425 pages
Publisher summary:
Every song tells a story. 

She’s a star on the rise, singing about the hard life behind her. 
She’s also on the run. Find a future, lose a past. 
Nashville is where she’s come to claim her destiny.  It’s also where the darkness she’s fled might find her.  And destroy her. 
Run, Rose, Run is a novel glittering with danger and desire—a story that only America’s #1 beloved entertainer and its #1 bestselling author could have created.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Chance (A Novel)
Author: Karen Kingsbury
Publisher: Howard Books
Publication Date: March 2013
Page Length: 354 pages
Publisher summary:
The day before a teenage Ellie moved from Georgia to California, she and her best friend Nolan sat beneath the Spanish moss of an ancient oak tree where they wrote letters to each other and buried them in a rusty old metal box. The plan was to return eleven years later, dig the box up, and read the letters. But now, as that date approaches, much has changed. Ellie has abandoned the faith she grew up with, her days consumed with loving her little girl and trying to make ends meet. Sometimes she watches TV to catch a glimpse of her old friend Nolan, now an NBA star, whose faith is known by the entire nation. But few know that Nolan’s own personal tragedies have fueled both his faith and athletic drive. Despite his success, Nolan is isolated and lonely, plagued by a void in his heart that has remained since that night beneath the old oak tree with Ellie. For both Ellie and Nolan, the coming date is more than just a childhood promise. It’s the chance to make sense of it all—the chance to find out if it’s ever too late to find love again. Karen Kingsbury weaves a moving tale of heart-wrenching loss, the power of faith, and the wounds that only a forever kind of love can heal. She delves deeply into a theme that resonates within us all: Hope lives for those willing to take a chance.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Family
Author: Naomi Krupitsky
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication Date: November 2021
Page Length: 368 pages
Publication summary:
Two daughters. Two families. One inescapable fate.
Sofia Colicchio is a free spirit, loud and untamed. Antonia Russo is thoughtful, ever observing the world around her. Best friends since birth, they live in the shadow of their fathers’ unspoken community: the Family. Sunday dinners gather them each week to feast, discuss business, and renew the intoxicating bond borne of blood and love.
 But the disappearance of Antonia’s father drives a whisper-thin wedge between the girls as they grow into women, wives, mothers, and leaders. Their hearts expand in tandem with Red Hook and Brooklyn around them, as they push against the boundaries of society’s expectations and fight to preserve their complex but life-sustaining friendship. One fateful night their loyalty to each other and the Family will be tested. Only one of them can pull the trigger before it’s too late.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Lowland
Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Publisher: Vintage
Publication Date: September 2013
Page Length: 354 pages
Publisher summary:
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling author of The Namesake comes an extraordinary new novel, set in both India and America, that expands the scope and range of one of our most dazzling storytellers: a tale of two brothers bound by tragedy, a fiercely brilliant woman haunted by her past, a country torn by revolution, and a love that lasts long past death.
 Born just fifteen months apart, Subhash and Udayan Mitra are inseparable brothers, one often mistaken for the other in the Calcutta neighborhood where they grow up.  But they are also opposites, with gravely different futures ahead. It is the 1960s, and Udayan—charismatic and impulsive—finds himself drawn to the Naxalite movement, a rebellion waged to eradicate inequity and poverty; he will give everything, risk all, for what he believes. Subhash, the dutiful son, does not share his brother’s political passion; he leaves home to pursue a life of scientific research in a quiet, coastal corner of America.
But when Subhash learns what happened to his brother in the lowland outside their family’s home, he goes back to India, hoping to pick up the pieces of a shattered family, and to heal the wounds Udayan left behind—including those seared in the heart of his brother’s wife.
Masterly suspenseful, sweeping, piercingly intimate, The Lowland is a work of great beauty and complex emotion; an engrossing family saga and a story steeped in history that spans generations and geographies with seamless authenticity. It is Jhumpa Lahiri at the height of her considerable powers.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Farm
Author: Joanne Ramos
Publisher: Random House
Publication Date: May 2019
Page Length: 354 pages
Publisher summary:
Nestled in New York’s Hudson Valley is a luxury retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, personal fitness trainers, daily massages—and all of it for free. In fact, you’re paid big money to stay here—more than you’ve ever dreamed of. The catch? For nine months, you cannot leave the grounds, your movements are monitored, and you are cut off from your former life while you dedicate yourself to the task of producing the perfect baby. For someone else.
Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines, is in desperate search of a better future when she commits to being a “Host” at Golden Oaks—or the Farm, as residents call it. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her family, Jane is determined to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose the life-changing fee she’ll receive on the delivery of her child.
Gripping, provocative, heartbreaking, The Farm pushes to the extremes our thinking on motherhood, money, and merit and raises crucial questions about the trade-offs women will make to fortify their futures and the futures of those they love.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: You Were There Too
Author: Colleen Oakley
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: January 2020
Page Length: 345 pages
Publisher summary:
Mia Graydon’s life looks picket-fence perfect; she has the house, her loving husband, and dreams of starting a family. But she has other dreams too—unexplained, recurring ones starring the same man. Still, she doesn’t think much of it, until a relocation to small-town Pennsylvania brings her face to face with the stranger she has been dreaming about for years. And this man harbors a jaw-dropping secret of his own—he’s been dreaming of her too. 
Determined to understand, Mia and this not-so-stranger search for answers. But when diving into their pasts begins to unravel her life in the present, Mia emerges with a single question—what if?
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: These Tangled Vines
Author: Julianne Maclean
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Publication Date: June 2021
Page Length: 302 pages
Publisher summary:
If Fiona has learned anything in life, it’s how to keep a secret—even from the father who raised her. She is the only person who knows about her late mother’s affair in Tuscany thirty years earlier, and she intends to keep it that way…until a lawyer calls with shocking news: her biological father has died and left her an incredible inheritance—along with two half siblings. Fiona travels to Italy, where the family is shocked to learn of her existence and desperate to contest her share of the will. While the mystery of her mother’s affair is slowly unraveled, Fiona must navigate through tricky family relationships and tense sibling rivalries. Fiona both fears and embraces her new destiny as she searches for the truth about the fateful summer her mother spent in Italy and the father she never knew. Spilling over with the sumptuous flavors and romance of Tuscany, These Tangled Vines takes readers on a breathtaking journey of love, secrets, sacrifice, courage—and most importantly, the true meaning of family.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Heirloom Island Series
Author: Elizabeth Bromke
Publisher summary:
Head to Heirloom Island in this heartwarming series about three sisters and the charming small town they come to call home. With a dash of romance and a touch of mystery, The Boardwalk House is a sweet beach read by the author of the Birch Harbor series. 
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: South Carolina Sunsets (9 book series)
Author: Rachel Hanna
Publisher summary:
She’s 43 years old…

…and starting over from scratch.

How did this happen? She had it all together. A stable marriage of two decades. Two grown daughters. And now she and her husband, empty nesters, were moving to a beach house.

Until he showed up late one night and tore their marriage apart.

A secret life.

A different woman.

Another family.

Left alone, she has to begin again. 

And then her estranged sister and mother get thrown into the mix.

When she buys a house on a small South Carolina island, will she learn what life is really about?

Or will she find out that some relationships can never be mended?

Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Year of Our Love
Author: Caterina Bonvicini
Publisher: Other Press
Publication Date: June 2021
Page Length: 400 pages
Publisher summary:
An extraordinary story of friendship and love across class lines, this rich, evocative novel traces the history of modern Italy, from 1975 to 2013, through the fate of one couple.
 Valerio and Olivia grow up together in the Morganti family’s opulent villa in Bologna, inseparable friends even though they come from vastly different worlds: Olivia, the Morgantis’ daughter, is the heir to a large industrial fortune, while Valerio is the son of their gardener and maid. Largely sheltered from the dangers rampant in the unstable Italy of the 1970s, the two share their first innocent kiss at five years old, which heralds the start of a decades-long relationship.
 From Valerio having to move to a poor neighborhood in Rome and Olivia making her entrance in high society, life tries to separate them at every turn, but without success, so strong is the bond between them. Year after year they meet only for a few moments, which feel like they’re eternal, and their friendship turns into something more intense, and scary. They take different paths: Olivia travels the world looking for herself, while Valerio devotes himself to a prestigious career that doesn’t satisfy him, in a country that is quickly losing its identity in the political crises of the Berlusconi era. Still, they keep meeting again and again at crossroads in life.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: It Had To Be You
Author: Georgia Clark
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Publication Date: May 2021
Page Length: 381 pages
Publisher summary:
For the past twenty years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.
It Had to Be You cleverly unites Liv, Savannah, and couples as diverse and unique as New York City itself, in a joyous Love-Actually-style braided narrative. The result is a smart, modern love story that truly speaks to our times. Second chances, secret romance, and steamy soul mates are front and center in this sexy, tender, and utterly charming rom-com that is “so much fun” (Casey McQuiston, New York Times bestselling author).
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Grace Kelly Dress
Author: Brenda Janowitz
Publisher: Graydon House
Publication Date: March 2020
Page Length: 336 pages
Publisher summary:
Two years after Grace Kelly’s royal wedding, her iconic dress is still all the rage in Paris—and one replica, and the secrets it carries, will inspire three generations of women to forge their own paths in life and in love.
Paris, 1958: Rose, a seamstress at a fashionable atelier, has been entrusted with sewing a Grace Kelly—look-alike gown for a wealthy bride-to-be. But when, against better judgment, she finds herself falling in love with the bride’s handsome brother, Rose must make an impossible choice, one that could put all she’s worked for at risk: love, security and of course, the dress.
Sixty years later, tech CEO Rachel, who goes by the childhood nickname “Rocky,” has inherited the dress for her upcoming wedding in New York City. But there’s just one problem: Rocky doesn’t want to wear it. A family heirloom dating back to the 1950s, the dress just isn’t her. Rocky knows this admission will break her mother Joan’s heart. But what she doesn’t know is why Joan insists on the dress—or the heartbreaking secret that changed her mother’s life decades before, as she herself prepared to wear it.
As the lives of these three women come together in surprising ways, the revelation of the dress’s history collides with long-buried family heartaches. And in the lead-up to Rocky’s wedding, they’ll have to confront the past before they can embrace the beautiful possibilities of the future.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Get a Life, Chloe Brown
Author: Talia Hibbert
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: November 2019
Publisher summary:
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list. After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?

• Enjoy a drunken night out.
• Ride a motorcycle.
• Go camping.
• Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
• Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
• And… do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job. Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit. But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: It Happened One Summer
Author: Tessa Bailey
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: July 2021
Publisher summary:
Piper Bellinger is fashionable, influential, and her reputation as a wild child means the paparazzi are constantly on her heels. When too much champagne and an out-of-control rooftop party lands Piper in the slammer, her stepfather decides enough is enough. So he cuts her off, and sends Piper and her sister to learn some responsibility running their late father’s dive bar… in Washington. Piper hasn’t even been in Westport for five minutes when she meets big, bearded sea captain Brendan, who thinks she won’t last a week outside of Beverly Hills. So what if Piper can’t do math, and the idea of sleeping in a shabby apartment with bunk beds gives her hives. How bad could it really be? She’s determined to show her stepfather—and the hot, grumpy local—that she’s more than a pretty face. Except it’s a small town and everywhere she turns, she bumps into Brendan. The fun-loving socialite and the gruff fisherman are polar opposites, but there’s an undeniable attraction simmering between them. Piper doesn’t want any distractions, especially feelings for a man who sails off into the sunset for weeks at a time. Yet as she reconnects with her past and begins to feel at home in Westport, Piper starts to wonder if the cold, glamorous life she knew is what she truly wants. LA is calling her name, but Brendan—and this town full of memories—may have already caught her heart. 
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Hunting Wives
Author: May Cobb
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: May 2021
Page Length: 362 pages
Publisher summary:
The Hunting Wives share more than target practice, martinis, and bad behavior in this novel of obsession, seduction, and murder.
Sophie O’Neill left behind an envy-inspiring career and the stressful, competitive life of big-city Chicago to settle down with her husband and young son in a small Texas town. It seems like the perfect life with a beautiful home in an idyllic rural community. But Sophie soon realizes that life is now too quiet, and she’s feeling bored and restless.
Then she meets Margot Banks, an alluring socialite who is part of an elite clique secretly known as the Hunting Wives. Sophie finds herself completely drawn to Margot and swept into her mysterious world of late-night target practice and dangerous partying. As Sophie’s curiosity gives way to full-blown obsession, she slips farther away from the safety of her family and deeper into this nest of vipers.
When the body of a teenage girl is discovered in the woods where the Hunting Wives meet, Sophie finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation and her life spiraling out of control.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Guncle
Author: Steven Rowley
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication Date: May 2021
Page Length: 336 pages
Publisher summary:
From the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus and The Editor comes a warm and deeply funny novel about a once-famous gay sitcom star whose unexpected family tragedy leaves him with his niece and nephew for the summer.
Patrick, or Gay Uncle Patrick (GUP, for short), has always loved his niece, Maisie, and nephew, Grant. That is, he loves spending time with them when they come out to Palm Springs for weeklong visits, or when he heads home to Connecticut for the holidays. But in terms of caretaking and relating to two children, no matter how adorable, Patrick is, honestly, overwhelmed.
So when tragedy strikes and Maisie and Grant lose their mother and Patrick’s brother has a health crisis of his own, Patrick finds himself suddenly taking on the role of primary guardian. Despite having a set of “Guncle Rules” ready to go, Patrick has no idea what to expect, having spent years barely holding on after the loss of his great love, a somewhat-stalled acting career, and a lifestyle not-so-suited to a six- and a nine-year-old. Quickly realizing that parenting–even if temporary–isn’t solved with treats and jokes, Patrick’s eyes are opened to a new sense of responsibility, and the realization that, sometimes, even being larger than life means you’re unfailingly human.
With the humor and heart we’ve come to expect from bestselling author Steven Rowley, The Guncle is a moving tribute to the power of love, patience, and family in even the most trying of times.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: My Lemon Grove Summer
Author: Jo Thomas
Publisher: Headline Review
Publication Date: July 2019
Page Length: 352 pages
Publisher summary:
Could the lemon groves of Sicily be the perfect place to start over? The irresistible new novel from Jo Thomas, the author of Sunset Over the Cherry Orchard, will transport you to the island of mountains and sparkling blue seas. When life hands you lemons … is it ever too late for a second chance? Zelda’s impulsive nature has got her precisely nowhere up until now. A fresh start in a beautiful hilltop town in Sicily looking for new residents, together with her best friend Lennie, could be just what she needs. And who better to settle down with than the person who knows her best? But the sun-filled skies and sparkling seas can’t hide the shadow hanging over Citta d’Ora, which means not everyone is pleased to see their arrival. The dreams Zelda and her fellow new residents had of setting up a new life might be slipping away. But a friendship with restauranteur Luca could be about to unlock the possibilities that lie in the local lemon groves. And there’s a wedding on the horizon that might be just what the town needs to turn it around…
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Summer of Broken Rules
Author: K.L. Walther
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: May 2021
Publisher summary:
When Meredith Fox lost her sister, Claire, eighteen months ago, she shut everyone out. But this summer she’s determined to join the world again. The annual family vacation to Martha’s Vineyard seems like the perfect place to reconnect. Her entire extended family is gathering for a big summer wedding, and although Meredith is dateless after being unexpectedly dumped, she’s excited to participate in the traditional Fox family game of assassin that will take place during the week of wedding festivities. Claire always loved the game, and Meredith is determined to honor her legacy. But when Meredith forms an assassin alliance with a cute groomsman, she finds herself getting distracted. Meredith tries to focus on the game and win it for her sister, but she can’t help falling for him. And as the week progresses, she realizes she’s not only at risk of losing the game, but also her heart.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

UPCOMING BEACH READS 2022

Title: Book Lovers
Author: Emily Henry
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: May 3rd, 2022
Publisher summary:
An insightful, delightful new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. 
One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn’t see coming…
Nora Stephens’ life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby. Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters’ trip away—with visions of a small town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute. If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Something Wilder
Author: Christina Lauren
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: May 3rd, 2022
Publisher Summary:
Growing up the daughter of notorious treasure hunter and absentee father Duke Wilder left Lily without much patience for the profession…or much money in the bank. But Lily is nothing if not resourceful, and now uses Duke’s coveted hand-drawn maps to guide tourists on fake treasure hunts through the red rock canyons of Utah. It pays the bills but doesn’t leave enough to fulfill her dream of buying back the beloved ranch her father sold years ago, and definitely not enough to deal with the sight of the man she once loved walking back into her life with a motley crew of friends ready to hit the trails. Frankly, Lily would like to take him out into the wilderness—and leave him there.
Leo Grady knew mirages were a thing in the desert, but they’d barely left civilization when the silhouette of his greatest regret comes into focus in the flickering light of the campfire. Ready to leave the past behind him, Leo wants nothing more than to reconnect with his first and only love. Unfortunately, Lily Wilder is all business, drawing a clear line in the sand: it’s never going to happen.
But when the trip goes horribly and hilariously wrong, the group wonders if maybe the legend of the hidden treasure wasn’t a gimmick after all. There’s a chance to right the wrongs—of Duke’s past and their own—but only if Leo and Lily can confront their history and work together. Alone under the stars in the isolated and dangerous mazes of the Canyonlands, Leo and Lily must decide whether they’ll risk their lives and hearts on the adventure of a lifetime. 
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The It Girl
Author: Ruth Ware
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Publication Date: July 12th, 2022
Publisher summary:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One returns with an unputdownable mystery following a woman on the search for answers a decade after her friend’s murder. April Coutts-Cliveden was the first person Hannah Jones met at Oxford. Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead. Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide…including a murder.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: Meant to Be Mine
Author: Hannah Orenstein
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: June 7, 2022
Publisher summary:
What if you knew exactly when you’d meet the love of your life? Edie Meyer knows. When her Grandma Gloria was a young woman, she had a vision of the exact day she would meet her soul mate—and then Grandpa Ray showed up. Since then, Gloria has accurately predicted the day every single member of the family has met their match. Edie’s day arrives on June 24, 2022, when she’s twenty-nine years old. She has been waiting for it half her life. That morning, she boards an airplane to her twin sister’s surprise engagement, and when a handsome musician sits beside her, she knows it’s meant to be. But fate comes with more complications than Edie expected and she can’t fight the nagging suspicion that her perfect guy doesn’t have perfect timing. After a tragedy and a shocking revelation rock Edie’s carefully constructed world, she’s forced to consider whether love chooses us, as simple as destiny, or if we choose it ourselves.
*Click HERE to view additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: The Boardwalk Bookshop
Author: Susan Mallery
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: May 31, 2022
Page Length: 448 pages
Publisher summary:
When fate brings three strangers to a charming space for lease on the California coast, the Boardwalk Bookshop is born. Part bookstore, part gift shop, part bakery, it’s a dream come true for Bree, Mikki and Ashley. But while their business is thriving, their personal lives are…not. Bree, wounded by brilliant but cold parents and her late husband’s ultimate betrayal, has sworn to protect her heart at all costs. Even from Ashley’s brother, a writer and adventurer who has inspired millions. He’s the first man to see past Bree’s barricades to her true self, which terrifies her. Mikki has this divorce thing all figured out—somehow, she’s stayed friends with her ex and her in-laws…until a new man changes how everyone looks at her, and how she sees herself. Meanwhile, Ashley discovers that the love of her life never intends to marry. Can she live without being a wife if it means she can have everything else she’s ever wanted? At sunset every Friday on the beach in front of the Boardwalk Bookshop, the three friends share a champagne toast. As their bond grows closer, they challenge one another to become the best versions of themselves in this heartachingly beautiful story of friendship, sisterhood and the transformative power of love.
*Click HERE for additional details and to purchase via Amazon.

Title: My Summer Darlings
Author: May Cobb
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: May 17, 2022
Page Length: 368 pages
Publisher summary:
A woman in the forest thinks she’s going to die.
                          I know he’s coming back for me.
 Jen Hansen, Kittie Spears, and Cynthia Nichols have been friends since childhood. They are now approaching forty and their lives have changed, but their insular East Texas town has not. They stay sane by drinking wine in the afternoons, dishing about other women in the neighborhood, and bonding over the heartache of their own encroaching middle age and raising ungrateful teens. 
Then Will Harding comes to town, moving into one of the neighborhood’s grandest homes. Mysterious and charming, he seems like the answer to each woman’s prayers. He’s a source of fascination for Jen, Kittie, and Cynthia, but none of them are ready for the way Will disrupts their lives. As Will grows closer with each of the women, their fascination twists into obsession, threatening their friendships and their families. When he abruptly pulls away, each woman scrambles to discover the source of his affection. But what they’ll uncover is far more sinister and deadly than any of them could have ever imagined.

LOOKING FOR ADDITIONAL BEACH READS? VIEW THE LINKS BELOW.

BEYOND THE BOOKENDS: ULTIMATE BEACH READS 2022
https://www.beyondthebookends.com/ultimate-beach-reads-2022-the-hottest-summer-reads/
READER’S DIGEST: 20 BEST BEACH READS FOR THE PERFECT ESCAPE
https://www.rd.com/list/beach-reads/
THE BOOK GIRLS’ GUIDE: BEST 22 SUMMER BOOKS
https://bookgirlsguide.com/beach-reads/
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING: 20 BEST SUMMER BOOKS 2022
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/g3585/summer-reading/
SHE READS: BEST BEACH READS OF SUMMER 2022
https://shereads.com/best-beach-reads-of-summer-2022/
THE UNCORKED LIBRARIAN: 22 BEST BEACH READS OF ALL TIME TO CHILL OUT WITH
https://www.theuncorkedlibrarian.com/top-beach-reads/
REAL SIMPLE MAGAZINE: THE BEST BOOKS OF 2022 SO FAR
https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/entertainment/books/best-books-2022
THE QUIRKY BOOKWORM: BEACH READS 2019
https://thequirkybookworm.com/2019/05/10/beach-reads/

HAPPY READING!